Stones
If the voice could come out in photographs
in the way shadow or tenderness does – even while
being more vulnerable realities – I would hear
once again my father telling me that, before
picking up a stone, you should roll it over
with your foot or a branch to scare away
the scorpions hiding underneath like dry thorns.
I never worried about that. Being six years old
was simple, simple as dying. In both cases,
there was no secret other than the air:
breathing it or not breathing it, as if the soul
were full of tiny alveoli that open
and close. The first scorpion I saw
was in the natural science book,
trapped forever in the severe pincers
of time. On occasion, though, books don’t tell
the whole truth, as if they didn’t know it
or had forgotten it on the way from the printer’s.
Arachnid with body divided into abdomen
and cephalothorax. It said nothing of the burning
sun in the tongue, of fear, of the spike
pierced into the neck. I didn’t know then
that words are immense icebergs
hiding beneath their icy waters much
more than they show. Like the word scorpion.
And now, as the phone insistently rings
– a sharp daybreak cry – as I get up,
turn on the light, move my hand to its white body
of plastic that shines like a stone in the sun,
as I pick it up and say yes? and someone tells me you’re dead,
I only think of scorpions, of what
you wanted to tell me when you repeated roll
the stones over, please, roll the stones over.
Pedres
Si la veu pogués sortir a les fotografies
com hi surt l’ombra o la tendresa –tot i ser
realitats més vulnerables–, sentiria
un cop més el meu pare explicant-me que, abans
de collir una pedra, cal fer-la rodolar
amb el peu o amb una branca per espantar
els escorpins que s’hi amaguen com punxes seques.
Mai no vaig preocupar-me’n. Perquè tenir sis
anys era senzill, senzill com morir-se. En tots
dos casos, no hi havia més secret que l’aire:
respirar-lo o no respirar-lo, com si l’ànima
fos plena de diminuts alvèols que s’obren
i es tanquen. El primer escorpí que vaig veure
va ser al llibre de ciències naturals,
atrapat per sempre entre les pinces severes
del temps. De vegades, però, els llibres no expliquen
tota la veritat, com si no la sabessin
o l’haguessin oblidat camí de la impremta.
Aràcnid que té el cos dividit en abdomen
i cefalotòrax. Res no hi deia del sol
ardent a la llengua, de la por, de l’espiga
travessada al coll. Jo no sabia llavors
que les paraules són immensos icebergs
que oculten sota les aigües glaçades molt
més del que mostren. Com la paraula escorpí.
I ara, mentre el telèfon sona insistentment
–un crit agut de matinada–, mentre em llevo,
encenc el llum, acosto la mà al seu cos blanc
de plàstic que brilla com una pedra al sol,
mentre el despenjo, i dic sí?, i algú em diu que ets mort,
jo només penso en els escorpins, en allò
que volies dir-me quan repeties fes
rodar les pedres, sisplau, fes rodar les pedres.
Semantics and Nutrition
A leaf falls to the ground and decomposes
into smaller meanings – humidity,
pigment, lamina, oxygen, warmth,
light – like someone spelling his full name
to a stranger: car bon di o xi de.
Nothing is lost on the way, neither
the talks with the rain at night,
nor the flight lessons given
by birds: it decomposes in its entirety
into smaller units directly assimilable
through the patience of ants, the silent mouths
of the forest. This is why the language
of the wind comes also to be spoken
underground. And this is why worms
try on wings and fly away
transformed into butterflies. Everything is
matter. Everything takes flight
when a single leaf falls to the ground.
Semàntica i nutrició
Cau la fulla a terra i es descompon
en significats menors –humitat,
pigment, làmina, oxigen, escalfor,
llum–, com qui lletreja el seu nom sencer
a un desconegut: an hí drid car bò nic.
Res no es perd pel camí, ni les converses
que ha mantingut amb la pluja de nit,
ni les lliçons de vol que li han donat
els ocells: tota ella es descompon
en unitats menors directament
assimilables per la paciència
de les formigues, les boques callades
del bosc. És per això que l’idioma
del vent arriba a parlar-se també
sota terra. I és per això que els cucs
s’emproven ales i surten volant
convertits en papallones. Tot és
matèria. Tot es transforma en vol
quan una simple fulla cau a terra.
The House
Bones are long white corridors where it is always
cold, as if death had left the door
open. Maybe the heart is the place where
the spore of sorrow, moist and red, first germinates,
but it is inside the bones where this pain stays,
persistent, like a little handful of sandy dust.
Air curls up, uncurls, pushes, scatters
photographs over this tablecloth
where it is so difficult to eat up the dinner
now that you are gone, now that the room fills up
with the absurd butterflies of memory.
I try to fix their wings with fine, delicate
needles but, unintentionally, I prick my fingers
and lips. And I cannot say, I cannot do
anything except pass them from hand to hand:
photographs like little skulls between
the being of the past and the nonbeing of the present.
La casa
Els ossos són llargs passadissos blancs on sempre
fa fred, com si la mort s’hagués deixat la porta
oberta. Potser el cor és el lloc on primer
germina l’espora del dolor, humida i roja,
però és als ossos on aquest dolor perdura,
insistent, com un grapadet de pols sorrenca.
L’aire es cargola, es descargola, empeny, escampa
fotografies damunt aquestes tovalles
on tan difícil és acabar-se el sopar
ara que no hi ets, ara que el menjador s’omple
amb les papallones absurdes del record.
Intento fixar-los les ales amb agulles
ben fines, però sense voler em punxo els dits
i els llavis. I ja no puc dir, ja no puc fer
res més que passar-les d’una mà a una altra mà :
fotografies com petites calaveres
entre el ser del passat i el no ser del present.
Baptism
Each evening I read again all the letters
you’ve never written me and that I keep in transparent
boxes so thieves won’t be able to find them
– for how will they see air in air, light in light?
There are many pasts existing in the past, many
memories that ramify like small
capillaries of time. Also memory is everything
we never managed to live, to see, to tell ourselves,
everything that remained lightly adhering
in our hearts, like an eyelash about to fly.
Dead before their birth but, all the same, souls
do not stop being souls. Or words,
words. All they needed was the cold water
of baptism and someone who knows how to believe in them.
Baptisme
Cada vespre torno a llegir totes les cartes
que mai no m’has escrit i que guardo en calaixos
transparents perquè els lladres no puguin trobar-les
–¿com veure l’aire en l’aire, la llum en la llum?–.
Existeixen molts passats dins el passat, moltes
memòries que es ramifiquen com petits
capil·lars del temps. També és record tot allò
que no vam arribar a viure, a veure, a dir-nos,
tot allò que se’ns va quedar adherit lleument
al cor, com una pestanya a punt de volar.
Mortes abans de néixer, no per això deixen
de ser ànimes les ànimes. Ni les paraules,
paraules. Només els va faltar l’aigua freda
del baptisme i algú que sabés creure en elles.
Little Story
The bee came close to my lips to dictate to me
the beginning of a poem found by chance
among the sweet syllables of the orange tree.
It would have been simple to shut my eyes and agree
if it weren't that nobody ever showed me
how to accept a miracle. I know perfectly well
how to place my hands to receive a poisoned
apple, I know how to bend my neck
to feel the slow crimson bite
night makes, how cruelty accumulates
in the depths of every mirror. With what hands,
however, should a gift be taken? How to open the hands
to accept the unexpected gift? The following day
it is always too late: the bee has vanished, no flowers
remain on any orange tree, and the syllables can't find
the proper order to show what the happy ending might be.
Petit conte
L’abella se m’acostà als llavis per dictar-me
l’inici d’un poema trobat a l’atzar
entre les síl·labes dolces del taronger.
Hauria estat senzill tancar els ulls i assentir
si no fos perquè ningú no em va ensenyar mai
a acceptar un miracle. Sé perfectament
com s’han de posar les mans per rebre una poma
enverinada, sé com s’ha d’inclinar el coll
per sentir la lenta mossegada vermella
de la nit, com s’acumula la crueltat
al fons de tots els miralls. Quines són les mans,
però, amb què es pren una ofrena? Com cal obrir-les
per acceptar el do inesperat? L’endemà
sempre és massa tard: l’abella no hi és, no queden
flors en cap taronger, i les síl·labes no troben
l’ordre adequat per indicar el final feliç.
The Sky above Berlin
Don't ask me about the whys or wherefores. Sometimes
there are pigeons that lose their way, pass through
a window, a curtain, a half-open
mirror, and nothing can prevent them spreading
through the soul's transparent skies, just as water-
colour tints spread through a drop of water fallen
by chance. Don't ask me about the whys
or wherefores of these mistakes, or even if they are
mistakes. How can we know whose hand it is
that opens mirrors, or whose hand spills
the water? Sometimes, life moves the wrong
piece, moves white instead of black, and then
there appears an eagle beneath the coat, a word
on the lips of a bee, a sad angel
sitting in a laundry. It is said
that this is something that happens to everyone, not just
to those who have wings. It's comforting to know that.
It's comforting to know that the mistake is a part
of us, that it sustains us like air or blood,
that the best encounters are actually
losses or muddles, chances that happen
three thousand feet up above forgotten
cities, there where words rise
like effervescent bubbles, and vanish.
El cel sobre Berlín
No em preguntis el com ni el per què. De vegades
hi ha coloms que equivoquen el camí, travessen
una finestra, una cortina, un mirall mig
obert, i res no pot evitar que s’escampin
pels cels transparents de l’ànima, com s’escampen
els colors de l’aquarel·la sota la gota
fortuïta d’aigua. No em preguntis el com
ni el per què d’aquests errors, ni tan sols si són
errors. ¿Com podríem saber de qui és la mà
que obre els miralls, de qui la mà que precipita
l’aigua? De vegades, la vida s’equivoca
de peça, mou blanca per negra, i aleshores
apareix una àliga sota l’abric, una
paraula en llavis d’una abella, un àngel trist
assegut en una bugaderia. Diuen
que és una cosa que ens passa a tots, no només
als qui tenen ales. Reconforta saber-ho.
Reconforta saber que l’error forma part
de nosaltres, que ens sosté com l’aire o la sang,
que els millors encontres són en realitat
pèrdues o confusions, atzars que passen
a mil metres d’altitud sobre les ciutats
oblidades, allà on les paraules s’eleven
com glòbuls efervescents, i desapareixen.
Long Journey
Along the tracks run the trains and the poems.
They run by day and they run by night. Little windows
so the light can breathe – every three
seconds, three seconds. The speed
curls into your ears like the long tail
of a mermaid. Swallowing
a word so as to hear it there once more.
On the platforms someone waves,
someone, who? Goods trains stuffed to the gunwales,
passenger trains, trains pulling cattle-trucks,
trains full of stretchers, trains of deportees.
Without warning, the tunnel closes
its eyes. Shadows stagger, heavy
as suitcases too full of roots.
And this absurd poem derails,
speaking – I think – about distance.
Llarg recorregut
Per les vies van els trens i els poemes.
Van de dia i van de nit. Finestretes
perquè respiri la llum –cada tres
segons, tres segons–. La velocitat
es cargola a les oïdes com una
llarga cua de sirena. Empassar-se
una paraula per tornar a sentir-hi.
A les andanes algú mou la mà,
algú, qui. Trens plens de mercaderies,
trens de passatgers, trens de bestiar,
trens de lliteres, trens de deportats.
Inesperadament, el túnel tanca
els ulls. Trontollen les ombres, feixugues
com maletes massa plenes d’arrels.
I descarrila aquest poema absurd
que parlava –em sembla– de la distància.
A Woman
A woman is ironing, making the most
of the last of the light from the window. She gathers
the garments on the ironing-board, dips her fingers
lightly in cold water, sprinkles the clothes,
pressing them with the triangle of steam,
and her eyelashes fill with vapour.
Outside, the city too smooths itself out
in the dusk, as though the buildings
might be coming apart in rivers of molten metal.
In the night, in the darkness, she goes on ironing,
she irons the flowers, the tiles in the house,
the eyelids that don't know how to close,
this daily fear of ours.
At daybreak, while we're still asleep,
she pulls out our soul and smooths it, on the right
side and the wrong side, until she has erased from it
every insidious crease, the stigma of doubt.
And so, when we get up, the morning shines
as fresh as a lawn that has just been cut,
and the windows are free from smears,
and breakfast welcomes us into its circle
as intimate and sweet as cream. It's eight o'clock.
We let ourselves be carried to work.
With the house empty, she comes in and picks up
from the foot of the bed the pile of dirty clothes,
the crumpledness of our ruins.
Behind the steam of centuries, a woman
is ironing, making the most of the last of the light.
Una dona
Una dona planxa aprofitant l’última
llum que entra per la finestra. Convoca
les peces damunt la post, mulla els dits
molt lleument en aigua freda, les ruixa,
les marca amb el vapor triangular,
les pestanyes se li omplen de boira.
A fora, la ciutat també s’aplana
sota el crepuscle, com si els edificis
es desfessin en rius de metall fos.
De nit, a les fosques, segueix planxant,
planxa les flors, les rajoles de casa,
les parpelles que no saben tancar-se,
aquesta por nostra de cada dia.
A trenc d’alba, quan encara dormim,
ens treu l’ànima i l’allisa, del dret
i del revés, fins a esborrar-ne tot
plec insidiós, l’estigma del dubte.
I així, en llevar-nos, el matí llueix
fresc com gespa acabada de tallar,
i les finestres no tenen lleganyes,
i l’esmorzar ens acull en el seu cercle
íntim i dolç com nata. Són les vuit.
Ens deixem transportar fins a la feina.
Amb la casa buida, ella entra i recull
dels peus del llit la muntanya de roba
bruta, el rebrec de les nostres ruïnes.
Rere el vapor dels segles, una dona
planxa aprofitant l’última claror.
Six Prose Poems
from the Book of Minutes [Poemes del Llibre dels minuts]
4
Can you draw a cat without lifting the pencil from the paper? – the ear, the warm curve of the flank, the softness of the belly, the nose, the ear again? Can you map the constellations of the northern hemisphere without lifting your finger from the sky, go from Andromeda to Cassiopeia, from Cassiopeia to the Great Bear, and back to Andromeda without breaking the thread? In the end, that's life, a pastime, a passing of time that requires the greatest skill in order to do it in one stroke. However numb your hand may grow with cold and weakness, remember not to lift the pencil.
4
¿Pots dibuixar un gat sense aixecar el llapis del paper —l’orella, la corba tèbia del llom, la blanor del ventre, el nas, novament l’orella—? ¿Pots cartografiar les constellacions de l’hemisferi nord sense aixecar el dit del cel, anar d’Andròmeda a Cassiopea, de Cassiopea a l’Óssa Major, i tornar a Andròmeda sense que es trenqui el fil? Al capdavall, així és la vida, un passatemps, un passar el temps que requereix la màxima habilitat per fer-la sencera d’un sol traç. Per molt que la mà se t’entumeixi de fred i desemparança, recorda’t de no aixecar el llapis.
7
When she was small she liked to cover the glass on the lamp with her hand and stare at the vague outline of her fingers, backlit, of a watery red, the little bones lying still as chrysalids, the white silk of the skin. She was always possessed by the desire that the light should pierce her flesh and reach right inside her heart, as though the whole of her were a Chinese lantern made of fine paper. With the passing years, however, she came to understand that at the heart of the rose it is always night.
7
Quan era petita, li agradava tapar el vidre de la llanterna amb la mà i mirar a contraclaror el perfil borrós dels dits, d’un vermell aigualit, els ossets quiescents com crisàlides, la seda blanca de la pell. Constantment aquell desig que la llum li travessés la carn i li arribés ben endins del cor, com si tota ella fos un fanalet xinès de paper fi. Amb els anys va entendre, però, que al centre de la rosa sempre és de nit.
13
They weighed the body a few minutes before death. They weighed the same body a few minutes after death. A simple mathematical subtraction was to tell them the weight of the soul. I think of that, now, while I hold the new book in my hands, the words still sticky like a newly hatched fledgling. And I wonder whether, once it is read, it will also weigh less. Like a body when it loses the soul.
13
Pesaven el cos uns minuts abans de morir. Pesaven el mateix cos uns minuts després de morir. Una simple sostracció matemàtica els havia d’indicar el pes de l’ànima. Hi penso, ara, mentre sostinc el llibre nou entre les mans, les paraules encara untoses com les plomes d’un ocell nascut de poc. I em pregunto si, un cop llegit, també pesarà menys. Com un cos quan perd l’ànima.
24
You strip water with your hands, and thirst appears. You strip thirst with your mouth, and the question appears. You try to follow, you try to unfasten reality button by button, to take off every bit of clothing until you stroke the slow delight of actual flesh. Who has interposed so many veils in this dance? Whatever you do, your hands will meet clothing, too much clothing, so much clothing you'll never be able to find out what each thing is beyond the tired meaning in the dictionary.
24
Despulles l’aigua amb les mans, i apareix la set. Despulles la set amb la boca, i apareix la interrogació. Proves de seguir, proves de descordar la realitat botó a botó, de treure-li tota la roba fins a fregar la delícia lenta de la pell definitiva. Qui ha interposat tants vels en aquesta dansa? Facis el que facis, les mans ensopegaran amb roba, massa roba, tanta roba que et serà impossible saber què és cada cosa més enllà de la definició cansada del diccionari.
39
Inertia is a strange property of matter. When you leave, for example, the air conserves the warmth of your body for a while, just as sand holds all night long the sad tepidness of the sun. When you leave, to stay with the same example, my hands persist in the caress, though there is no longer skin to fondle but only the carcass of memory decomposing in the stairwell. When you leave, there remains behind an invisible you, adhering to the smallest things: a hair on the pillowcase, perhaps, a gaze entwined with the beams of desire, a small crust of saliva in the commissures of the couch, a molecule of tenderness on the floor of the shower. It is not difficult to find you: love is my magnifying glass.
39
La inèrcia és una estranya propietat de la matèria. Quan marxes, per exemple, l’aire conserva l’escalfor del teu cos durant una estona, així com la sorra guarda tota la nit la tebior trista del sol. Quan marxes, per continuar amb el mateix exemple, les meves mans persisteixen en la carícia, malgrat que ja no hi ha pell per acariciar, només la carcanada del record descomponent-se al buit de l’escala. Quan marxes, deixes enrere un tu invisible adherit a les coses més petites: potser un cabell a la coixinera, una mirada que s’ha entortolligat amb els tirants del desig, una crosteta de saliva a les comissures del sofà, una molècula de tendresa al plat de la dutxa. No és difícil trobar-te: l’amor em fa de lupa.
47
With the metal tweezers of the mind, we attempted to lift the colour of matter, like one who lifts the gelatinous membrane covering the organs. We attempted afterwards to extract the heat from every grain of sand – the patience of the one-to-one – until we obtained a domestic universe. To isolate pronoun from verb, until we are left with the hard bone of the infinitive. To isolate the bubble from the soap, until we are left with only the beauty of the sphere that floats away. To isolate pain from pain, until we are left with pain alone.
47
Amb les pinces metàl·liques de la intel·ligència, intentàrem llevar el color de la matèria, com qui lleva la membrana gelatinosa que recobreix els òrgans. Provàrem després d’extreure l’escalfor de cada granet de sorra —la paciència de l’un a un—, fins a obtenir un univers domèstic. Aïllar el pronom del verb, fins a deixar només l’os dur de l’infinitiu. Aïllar la bombolla del sabó, fins a deixar només la bellesa de l’esfera que s’envola. Aïllar el dolor del dolor, fins a deixar només el dolor.
The Sense of Growth
Flowers
and hats
and fingernails
and doors
grow outwards.
If they ever grow inwards
it is by boring through
the earthy tunnel
of pain.
A pain that's known
to caves
and roots
and ears
and women
who have learned to grow
inwards.
El sentit del creixement
Flors
i barrets
i ungles
i portes
creixen enfora.
Si mai creixen endins
és perforant
el túnel terrós
del dolor.
Un dolor que coneixen
coves
i arrels
i orelles
i dones,
que han après a créixer
endins.
The List
Some mornings
they call us by name
in a very low voice,
randomly they wake us from one sleep
to plunge us into another sleep
even more incomprehensible
and ambiguous.
Dozing and barefoot we queue up
beneath the teary secretion
of the strip-lights,
while we wait
to be given permission some day or other
to wake up.
The last time I saw her
they kept saying she was missing a sheet of paper
(insistent taps of the forefinger
on the counter's bare formica),
a sheet of paper,
just one sheet,
and you never wake up.
La llista
Algunes matinades
ens criden pel nom
en veu molt baixa,
a la impensada ens desvetllen d’un son
per submergir-nos en un altre son
encara més incomprensible
i equívoc.
Endormiscats i descalços fem cua
sota la secreció lacrimal
dels fluorescents,
mentre esperem
que un dia o un altre ens donin permís
per despertar.
L’última vegada que la vaig veure
li repetien que li faltava un paper
(copets insistents de l’índex
sobre la fòrmica pelada del taulell),
un paper,
només un paper,
i ja no et despertes.
Postwar
The venerable Agathon lived for three years
with a stone in his mouth
in order to learn to keep quiet.
My grandmother did not have to live for three years
with a stone in her mouth
in order to learn to keep quiet.
Postguerra
El venerable Agató va viure tres anys
amb una pedra a la boca
per tal d’aprendre a guardar silenci.
L’àvia no va haver de viure tres anys
amb una pedra a la boca
per tal d’aprendre a guardar silenci.
Disappeared
Not even the dictionary
was ready
to describe a situation like that one
(these days it sometimes happens
that brutality overtakes
language)
Widow
woman who has lost her spouse through death
and has not re-married
And how to describe
one who every night gets into bed
for forty years
with the hope of hearing
the quick rat-a-tat on the door
the arrival of some certainty
that may allow her at last
to place the pebble
in the pigeon-hole marked Life
or in the pigeon-hole marked Death
(for between life and death
there are no halfway pigeon-holes that count)
The inconvenient widow of every dictionary
gets dressed each morning without knowing
whether black is the colour
Desaparegut
Ni tan sols el diccionari
estava preparat
per dir una situació com aquella
(ja passa que de vegades
la brutalitat s’avança
a la paraula)
Vídua
dona que ha perdut el seu cònjuge per mort
i no s’ha tornat a casar
I com dir-ne
de qui cada vespre es fica al llit
per quaranta anys
amb l’esperança de sentir
els breus trucs a la porta
l’arribada d’alguna certesa
que li permeti a la fi
col·locar la pedreta
en la casella de la vida
o en la casella de la mort
(perquè entre la vida i la mort
no s’hi valen caselles intermèdies)
La vídua incòmoda de tots els diccionaris
cada matí es vesteix sense saber
si el negre és el color
Gemma Gorga, born in Barcelona, 1968, has a Ph.D. in Philology from the University of Barcelona, where she teaches Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature. She has published several collections of poetry: Ocellania [Birdology] (1997), El desordre de les mans [Disorder of the Hands] (2003), Instruments òptics [Optic Instruments] (2005), Llibre dels minuts [Book of Minutes] (2006), Diafragma [Diaphragm] (2013) with the photographer Joan Ramell, and, more recently, Mur [Wall] (2015). As stated in an interview in March 2010, she writes poetry “basically to know things I don’t know” (http://poetarium.llull.cat/poetarium/detall.cfm/ID/26859/CAT/gemma-gorga.html ) and admits she is eclectic, often reading and “nourished” by translations, be they of eleventh-century Chinese or of contemporary Americans. For readers wishing to hear Gorga’s reading of “Stones” and “Baptism” in her native tongue, both are included in the above-cited website.
The sixty prose poems forming the Book of Minutes won the 2006 Premi Miquel de Palol prize and subsequently appeared in a Catalan-Spanish bi-lingual edition, Libro de los minutos y othros poemas (València: Edicions de la Guerra, 2009) translated by Vicent Berenguer as well as Catalan-English portions translated by Sharon Dolin in Life and Legend Magazine, Issue Four, 30th June 2016, at: http://lifeandlegends.com/gemma-gorga-translated-sharon-dolin/ and in PEN America Newsletter, 26th July 2016, at: https://pen.org/book-of-minutes/. Examples of her poetry, translated by Keith Payne, also figure amongst twelve other Iberian women writers in Manuela Palacios (ed.), Forked Tongues: Galician, Basque and Catalan Women’s Poetry in Translations by Irish Writers (Bristol: Shearsman Books, 2012), pp. 151-160.
Following three months residence with the Sanskriti Foundation in New Delhi, she has translated a book of the contemporary Anglophone Indian poet Dilip Chitre (Twenty Breakfasts Towards Death [Vint esmorzars cap a la mort] (2013)). More recently, in collaboration with Ernest Farrés, she has also translated an anthology of the American poet Edward Hirsch (Partial History of My Stupidity & Other Poems [Història parcial de la meva estupidesa i altres poems] (2017)).
Note
“Stones,” “Baptism,” and “Prose Poem #39” are translated by Julie Wark, reprinted with permission and first appearing in Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art, Issue Two, Winter 2013, pp. 14-21. All other translations are by Anna Crowe, reprinted with permission, from anthologies edited by Pere Ballart, Six Catalan Poets (Todmorden: Arc Publications, 2013) and by Bei Dao and others, Semantics and Nutrition (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2015).
The Catalonian originals in order are sourced as follows:
* “Pedres.” “Semàntica i nutrició,” “La casa,” and “Baptisme” from El desordre de les mans [Disorder of the Hands] (2003);
* “Petit conte,” “El cel sobre Berlin,” “Llarg recorregut,” and “Una dona” from Instruments òptics [Optic Instruments] (2005);
* “6 poemas en prosa” from Llibre dels minuts [Book of Minutes] (2006); and
* “El sentit del creixement,” “La llista,” “Postguerra,” and “Desaparegut” from Mur [Wall] (2015).